AOC2 is a unique collaboration experiment, with agency veterans, ministers, social media experts, directors of marcom, non-profit directors, PR experts and artists coming together to produce an edition that shows innovative and insightful thinking about how social computing and digital communications are changing our world each and every day.

Before I thank all the superstars, that made this book unique and extraordinary, a special Thank you to Drew McLellan and Gavin Heaton. They did all the hard and dirty work to wrangle more than 200 authors, deal with publishers and execute this monster project in their free time. You guys are Megastars!

The most infuriating part of the current financial/housing/credit hysterics is the lack of perspective: Comparing the current state of the economy to the Great Depression. The lowest levels since 1932. The highest TED Spread since there was a TED Spread. The worst economic outlook since ever. Stay tuned, because you might miss the world coming to an end after thhhhheeeeessse messages. Comparisons that make no sense. Comparisons that stink to high heaven. Cynical comparisons to keep frightened people stay tuned to CNBC, Fox Business and all the other blowhole networks.

Just like the reaction to 9/11, media tends to overblow threats and uses fear as a tool to keep people tuned to their programs. Don’t get me wrong: This is a bad crisis. And many people will have to pay with unemployment, more foreclosures, major financial problems and extreme stress levels. But just like a hypochondriac with a serious disease, the media tries to find even more sicknesses and symptoms to make the bad even look worse.

In the meantime, continue to live your life, work your way through it, enjoy your family and friends, cherish the positive changes that will come out of this new challenge and, most importantly, stay away from the Business Channels as far as you can. And trust in the perspective time offers you:

“It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: “And this, too, shall pass away.” – Abraham Lincoln